Tales of the Jacobite Grenadiers: The Second of Three Books Telling the Story of Captain Patrick Lindesay and the Jacobite Horse Grenadiers

© 2013 by Gavin Wood. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 07/16/2013

ISBN: 978-1-4678-8260-6 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4678-8261-3 (e)

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Contents

Foreword

Historical Note

Prologue

List of Principal Characters

Kilmarnock’s Horse Grenadiers

Part One

Chapter One The Baggage Train at Peebles

Chapter Two The Tents at Ecclesfechan

Chapter Three The Siege at Carlisle

Chapter Four The Redcoats at Hexham

Chapter Five The Mayor at Penrith

Chapter Six The Dinner at Lowther Hall

Chapter Seven The Geese at Gately Ford

Chapter Eight The Letters at the Red Lion

Chapter Nine The Bridge at Swarkeston

Chapter Ten The Paymaster at Derby

Part Two

Chapter Eleven The Rampage at Mayfield.

Chapter Twelve The Sleight-of-Hand at Stockport

Chapter Thirteen The Marksman at Manchester

Chapter Fourteen The Tryst at Standish

Chapter Fifteen The Rangers at Lancaster

Chapter Sixteen The Skirmish at Scar Moor

Chapter Seventeen The Fight at Clifton Moor

Chapter Eighteen The Ford at Longton

Chapter Nineteen The Fireside at Wester Deans

Part Three

Chapter Twenty The True Tale at the Dead Burn

Chapter Twenty-one The Review at Glasgow Green

Chapter Twenty-two The Stratagem at the Study

Chapter Twenty-three The Brig at the Pow Creek

Chapter Twenty-four The Battery at Airth Hill

Chapter Twenty-five The Guile at Elphinestonepans

Chapter Twenty-six The Cutters at the Saugh

Chapter Twenty-seven The Sloops at the Saltpans

Chapter Twenty-eight The Dinner at Callendar House

Chapter Twenty-nine The Plan at Plean Muir

Chapter Thirty The Storm Clouds at Dunipace

Chapter Thirty-one The Battle at Falkirk Muir

Chapter Thirty-two The Black Cockade at Falkirk

Part Four

Chapter Thirty-three The Bullet Mould at the Manse

Chapter Thirty-four The Bluff at the Bedside

Chapter Thirty-five The Gun at the Gowan Hill

Chapter Thirty-six The Prisoners at Doune

Chapter Thirty-seven The Brandy at Larbert

Chapter Thirty-eight The Magazine at St. Ninians

Chapter Thirty-nine The Duel at the Tor Wood

Chapter Forty The Ptarmigan at Broad Cairn

Epilogue

Historical Note… on the Invasion of England…

Historical Note… on the Forth Valley Campaign…

Foreword

In 2008 I stumbled upon the story of a local man during a visit to the library at St. Andrews. Despite being raised in the town and having a sound knowledge of the local history, I had never heard of Patrick Lindesay the Jacobite… but then neither had anyone else. I had not realised that the strongly Presbyterian county of Fife had provided men for the rebel army of Bonnie Prince Charlie. After much research, I unearthed several documents and letters touching upon the life of this loyal and swashbuckling fellow. I was intrigued, for his story is a strange one.

In 1742 Patrick Lindesay was an impoverished farmer, a gout afflicted widower and a bankrupt gentlemen of ill repute. Three years later his fortunes had changed. Charles Edward Stuart, as Prince Regent in Edinburgh, granted him the colourful title of Master of the Royal Wardrobe. In the summer of 1745 Patrick Lindesay was charged with raising a company of cavalry in Fife for the Jacobite cause. Furthermore, he raised the standard of rebellion at the market place in St. Andrews and proclaimed James Stuart as king.

Patrick Lindesay, soon after, received a captain’s commission in the newly formed regiment of Lord Kilmarnock’s Horse Grenadiers. When I sat down to write the book The Jacobite Grenadier in 2009, I had intended to tell the private story of this fascinating gentleman, to put the pieces of the jigsaw together. At this time I wondered if I had enough material to produce a whole book on the subject. I need not have worried. I soon discovered that the regiment in which Patrick Lindesay served had a rich but unwritten history all of its own. As the long-forgotten exploits of the Jacobite Horse Grenadiers were rediscovered, I was required to pick up my pen once more and continue the tale.

For my own protection, be it noted that what follows is a novel of total fiction and all characters whose actions I chronicle are purely imaginary… This is far from being the truth, but necessity knows no laws! The reader can be assured that all the people in this book were real and all their adventures factually based. I have tried to tell the tale in good faith based upon the historical accounts available. Where-ever they are known the activities and the whereabouts of Patrick Lindesay and the Grenadiers are written into the story. I have also woven a wealth of minor detail into my book. For example, the curious outfits of James Brands and Oliver Williams, the coded letters, the barley-gruel, the skull cap and the cow turd, the chipped horn spoons, the hoarse throat, the kettle drums, the case of brandy, even the bag of sugar candy are based on written records. Where I found gaps in the tale that needed to be filled, I have placed my hero in situations that were also real to life.

Unlike the other cavalrymen of the Jacobite army, the Horse Grenadiers were not gentlemen… they were servants, farmers and tradesmen from every corner of Scotland. They served tirelessly throughout the rebellion, right to the very bitter end, and against all expectations they performed with great resolution and ingenuity and showed themselves to be superior to their professional opponents. They quickly gained a reputation for daring, ferocity and skulduggery.

The Jacobite Horse Grenadiers deserve to be remembered… And their story deserves to be told!

Historical Note

In 1702 Queen Anne of the royal House of Stuart ascended to the thrones of Scotland, England and Ireland. Unlike her ancestors she was a protestant. Despite being pregnant eighteen times, none of Queen Anne’s children lived to adulthood. She died in 1714 without an heir. Most of Queen Anne’s subjects expected her half-brother, James Stuart, to be crowned as her successor. He was, after all, first in line to inherit the throne. James though was a catholic and lived in exile. And the lords of the British parliament politically outmanoeuvred the supporters of James Stuart; they swiftly elected to offer the vacant throne to his cousin—George of Hanover. By bloodline George was only fifty-eighth in line to the throne, but he was a protestant. Unable to believe his good fortune, George accepted the crowns of England, Scotland and Ireland… to the disgruntlement of many honest and right-thinking men. The supporters of King George were known as Hanoverians. The supporters of James Stuart were known as Jacobites.

In 1708, 1715 and 1719, James Stuart made three attempts to claim the throne of Scotland. Each expedition ended in failure. In the summer of 1745 his son Charles bravely and rashly made one last attempt to assert his father’s claim. At the head of a small army of Highland clansmen, Prince Charles captured Edinburgh and defeated the redcoats of King George at the Battle of Gladsmuir. With Scotland largely under his control, Charles Stuart was crowned Prince Regent in a ceremony at the abbey church of Holyrood House. In England, General Wade responded to the uprising by concentrating the regiments loyal to the Hanoverian government at Newcastle; he was charged with reclaiming the Scottish throne for King George. The Scottish Jacobites meanwhile beat up for recruits and attempted to assemble an army of their own.

As the autumn of 1745 came to an end, the small, inexperienced and hastily trained army of Prince Charles took the initiative in the war. They set off south from Edinburgh. Their bold plan was to cross the border, defeat the army of General Wade, march to London, and unseat King George from his English throne… in the depths of winter. Before he departed, Prince Charles wrote to his father in Rome, ‘Without French forces, I cannot resist English, Dutch, Hessians, and Swiss. With an army of only six thousand, as matters stand, I shall have one decisive stroke for’t, but if the French do not land, perhaps none. As matters stand I must either conquer or perish in a little while.’

For Fiona:

For her tolerance.

The Theatre of War. Winter 1745-46

Prologue

‘This is that king who should make right each wrong;

Of whom the bards and mystic Sibelles song;

The man long promised, by whose glorious reign,

This Isle should yet her ancient name regain.

And men of fortune deserve the style,

Than those where heavens with double summers smile.’

—Thomas the Rhymer, prophet 1220-1297

The air was clearer than at any other time of the year, and the far off mountains of the Scottish Highlands stood out white on the northern skyline. The farmer, accompanied by his daughter, walked up the long ridge of the Wether Law. Standing upon the summit, with eyes creased by time and hardship, he gazed to the distance. The winter sun was hovering above the horizon reflecting pink off the late evening landscape. Spreading outwards from the Wether Law in every direction were the other frost-encrusted hills of southern Scotland. The hills were surrounded by the Lowlands. And the Lowlands were surrounded by the cold northern seas.

The grass, grazed short by his own sheep, made for easy walking. Patrick and Miss Betty strode to the neighbouring summit of the Peat Hill. The Peat Hill, like the Wether Law, also had a long northern ridge. The two ridges of the two high hills wrapped around a basin of rugged, treeless, waterlogged pastureland. The soil was too wet, too high and too thin to be fertile. The land on the slopes of the Wether Law could sustain just one lonely hill-farm. It was called Wester Deans. And it belonged to Patrick.

In the gloaming, the man and the girl made their way home to the farmhouse down the shoulder of the hill. It was not the shortest way, but it avoided the steep slopes, the many burns that cut deep, and the marshy ground. Patrick mused that his farm was the furthest from the sea, the highest, and the most remote in all of Scotland, assuming one ignored the hovels of the Highland clansmen… and most people in Lowland Scotland did.

As they headed home he looked out over his lands. On the floor of the valley he could see Sherwood the old soldier hunting in the reeds for water-fowl. In the farmyard Ms Drummond the housekeeper was feeding the hens. Patrick would have smiled at the picture, had the day been a different one, had the prospect of victory been a favourable one. But it was not the case. And unless the British Army could be defeated it was unlikely he would see his home again. For Patrick Lindesay was a man with a curious past: he was a Highlander by blood, a Lowlander by birth, a Borderer by choice… And he was a Jacobite to his fingertips.

Patrick reached the farmhouse where he had lived for many long years. Hard years. Across those years he had married three wives and fathered seven children. Three of his sons had been sent away to sea whilst young, he could not afford to feed them; now only one of his sons and Miss Betty remained at home.

Patrick left his daughter in the kitchen and climbed the stairs in search of young Sandy; he wished to spend some time alone with the boy. Every single night, over all of those years, whenever Patrick was at home, he had entertained his children with a tale of derring-do after supper. Tonight he would recount a bedtime tale for the last time. In the morning he would leave Wester Deans and return to his regiment, to the army, to rejoin the smouldering war… a war that was about to explode into England like a long-fused grenade.

* * *

From the head of the stairs Patrick heard the boy playing alone in his bedroom. Not so long ago the bedroom had been cramped when Sandy had shared it with his brothers. Now though Sandy had the room to himself. And he wished it was otherwise. Still there were some advantages…

Patrick entered the bedroom under the sloping roof and found the boy playing with toy soldiers between the beds. Sandy was carefully marshalling a newly painted regiment of red-coated fusiliers. The well organised and fearless troops stood in two perfect ranks. A cunningly hidden howitzer gave the soldiers flanking fire from behind the leg of the bed. The soldiers of the opposing army had once belonged to Sandy’s older brother; they were clearly veterans of many earlier campaigns and much of their paint had flaked off revealing the lead underneath. More worryingly still for this poorly uniformed army, many of their fragile muskets, even some limbs, had become snapped away during previous battles.

But their cause was not hopeless. For despite their lack of numbers and their poor weaponry, the brave veterans were charging the redcoats in a wild charge across the floorboards. To supplement their lack of numbers, the regular troopers of the attacking army were supported by a company of local volunteers. Patrick, intrigued, studied the militia. The heroic battalion consisted of a collection of wooden farm animals: there was a cow, a sheep, a pig, a horse and even a duck. Furthermore, the farmer and his wife were also up for the fight. Patrick contemplated the unfolding battle on the bedroom floor and disguised his concerns. It was quite apparent that the farmer’s wife was carrying a basket of eggs and the duck had not noticed the howitzer waiting under the bed. The casualties were going to be high.

‘Would you like to hear the tale of how we defeated General Cope’s redcoats at the Battle of Gladsmuir?’

‘Yes please,’ Sandy’s eyes were wide with excitement.

His father sat down upon the bed. ‘The English general brought all of his infantry, his cavalry and his artillery together… thousands of them. He planned to recapture Edinburgh from Prince Charles and his army of Highlandmen.’

‘Did you ride your new horse with the Prince’s other gentlemen?’

‘I did indeed, and my horse was the most handsome and the most swift in all of the army.’

‘The whole army!’ Sandy knew his father was prone to embellish his stories.

Patrick nodded, ‘Only the Prince had a finer horse.’ And it was true.

‘And tell me about the Highlandmen,’ implored Sandy. ‘Did they have horses too?’

‘No.’

‘Not even ponies?’

‘No.’

Sandy looked disappointed.

‘They had no need for them,’ explained his father, ‘for a Highlander can run faster than a pony.’

‘Oh!’ Sandy suspected his father was being untruthful again.

But Patrick kept his face staid, ‘The Highlanders fought on foot with swords and pistols.’

‘And were they as fierce as everyone says?’

‘Fiercer.’

‘Fiercer!’

‘The Prince himself led them into battle, a great mass of blue-bonneted fellows; they wore tartan plaids and buckled belts, they carried leather targes and long stabbing dirks. And they ran towards the waiting redcoats waving their swords and shouting their battle cries… just as the sun came up. All the soldiers of General Cope’s army, every God-damned one of them, were terrified at the sight. The fainthearts ran away when the Highlandmen discharged their pieces.’

‘The spineless skellums!’ Young Sandy fired an imaginary musket.

Patrick was warming to the tale. ‘One party of dragoons rode straight towards us Lowland fellows, to where we waited, at the fringe of a marsh. The dragoons were hoping to brush us aside and escape into the hills beyond.’

‘Did you fight the English dragoons on your grey horse?’

‘No, the ground was too plashy and the reeds too high. We dismounted instead, and crouched in the morass… like a skulk of foxes. And once we had all fired off our muskets, we rushed forward as one, drew out our swords and set about them. Mr Sherwood in particular was very brave.’

‘Were many of the English redcoats killed?’

Patrick closed his eyes. For the memories still haunted him… the slaughter had been terrible and only a handful of the enemy had escaped the battlefield. Hundreds upon hundreds of King George’s soldiers had been hacked to death or savagely maimed.

And now, if Scotland was to retain her hard won sovereignty under her rightful king, thousands more men would have to die.

List of Principal Characters

Patrick Lindesay. Jacobite captain of cavalry.

Maggie Wemyss. Patrick’s wife.

Miss Betty. Patrick’s daughter.

Ms Drummond. Patrick’s housekeeper.

General George Wade. Hanoverian field-marshal.

General Hawley. Hanoverian commander of horse.

Captain John Vere. Principal spy for the British Army.

William, Duke of Cumberland. Commander-in-Chief of the British Army, younger son of King George II.

Lord George Murray. Commander of the Jacobite army.

John O’Sullivan. Jacobite quartermaster-general.

Colonel James Grante. Jacobite master-of-artillery.

Colonel Henry Ker. Staff officer to the Prince.

Edmund Clavering. Cumbrian volunteer.

Captain Oliver Williams. Irish volunteer.

Captain Charles Boyd. Captain of the Prince’s bodyguard, youngest son of Lord Kilmarnock.

Kilmarnock’s Horse Grenadiers

Colonel William Boyd 4th Earl of Kilmarnock.

Captain Patrick Lindesay. Farmer.

Lieutenant George Gordon. Gentleman.

Lieutenant Donald MacDonald. Riding master.

Lieutenant William MacKenzie. Fencing master.

Quartermaster James Harvie. Innkeeper.

Ensign William Sharp. Student.

Sergeant William Baird. Coal-heaver.

Drummer Boy John Auld.

Trooper James Sherwood. Servant.

Trooper James Brand. Watchmaker’s son.

Trooper Ninian Wise. Gamekeeper.

Trooper James Callander. Baker.

Trooper Charles Shaddon. Coal grieve.

Trooper David Davert. Gardener.

Trooper John Warren. Carpenter.

Trooper Adam Tait. Jeweller.

Trooper Peter Riddock. Slater.

Battle of Falkirk Muir

. . . 17th January 1746 . . .

Part One

Leading the Soldier’s Life

In the morning whilst it was still dark, Patrick rose without wakening the children. He wished to be back with the army before reveille. He kissed gently young Sandy and then Miss Betty. And then stared awhile at the two sleeping figures.

Chapter One

The Baggage Train at Peebles

Patrick crossed the room to the fireplace avoiding the floorboard that creaked. In the darkness he lifted the bonnet that sat on the mantelpiece, and then he reached up feeling for the sword that belonged there. He had hung the rapier on the wall the previous night for maudlin reasons; he felt the room looked forsaken without it on display.

The sword was peculiar and old-fashioned and crafted by a smith who knew his business: the grip was surrounded by a basket of creeping wires to protect the owner’s fingers, one of which looped all the way to the pommel to form the knuckle bow. The S shaped crosspiece, the quillon, sat below the grip to catch an opponent’s blade. Immediately below the quillon was a circular dome of steel called a pappenheimer. The pappenheimer was punctuated with a pattern of holes that lightened the weapon; it gave additional protection to the swordman’s hand.

With the rapier tucked under his arm, Patrick slipped out of the parlour to dress in the kitchen. He placed the bonnet and the naked sword on the table and then groped in search of a candle. He lit the candle from the peat fire that still glowed red in the hearth, and by its light he collected together his clothes for the adventure ahead.

Over his cotton underclothes he pulled on his riding breeches; the seat was reinforced with leather and the outer seams fastened by a row of brass buttons. Patrick had taken the breeches from a dead dragoon… a fellow lying dead in the marsh by Gladsmuir.

He sat down on a stool to pull on his boots; they too had been taken as plunder on the battlefield. And then he fought with a linen shirt in the dimly lit room, and eventually won the contest. Over the shirt, with gout-afflicted fingers, he buttoned a waistcoat. The waistcoat was made from a single piece of sheepskin that he had tanned himself.

Patrick next lifted a harness containing two pistols from the kitchen table. He buckled the harness over his shoulders so that the pistols sat upright at the front of his chest; here the weapons were easy to reach when required, they also provided protection from a sabre slash to the body. The heavy pistols had a stout barrel but only a small calibre; they fired a tiny iron ball with a powerful charge. The shortness of the weapons meant they were hopelessly inaccurate at distance. But at close range they could penetrate the iron breastplate of a heavy dragoon.

The stairs groaned as footsteps descended from the bedroom above, and James Sherwood, already dressed for the campaign ahead, ducked under the frame of the door and into the kitchen. The fellow stood for a while as his sclerotic eyes became accustomed to the dark and the unfamiliar room; at sixty-three years of age Sherwood was the oldest man in his regiment. He had lank grey hair, eyes almost blue, and a perfectly circular hole in his teeth. Sherwood had volunteered to be Patrick’s servant at the onset of the war… and had not let him down.

Still half-asleep, Sherwood did not speak. Wordlessly he lifted Patrick’s coat and helped his master to dress. The brand new coat was long, longer than was expected for a light cavalryman. It was heavy too. The garment was woven from coarse green wool, the shade of moss, and furnished with buttons turned from deer horn.

Patrick gathered up the giberne that hung from a chair by the kitchen table. It had two powder horns attached… one large, one small. The giberne was a leather satchel which he wore at his hip, suspended by a belt that ran over his left shoulder and between his pistols. Inside the giberne, under its long outer flap, or couvre-giberne, the soldiers kept their ammunition and powder charges. Across his other shoulder Patrick slung his sword belt. He lifted his rapier from the table and returned the blade to its scabbard.

Only a tartan sash and the grenadier’s bonnet remained in front of him, and Patrick picked up the hat as if it was precious and set it firmly upon his head. The dark blue bonnet was cylindrical, about nine inches tall, it was made of wool and stiffened with felt. The bonnet had a flat top that was broader than the base, and at the centre of the crown was a pompom of red-dyed wool. There was a second splash of colour to catch the eye: all the way around the base of the bonnet, knitted into the very make-up of the piece, was a decorative riband. The riband in three layers consisted of squares of red and white and green. And there was more decoration to cut a dash… at the left side of the bonnet was a rosette known as a cockade, fashioned from seven loops of white ribbon. The cockade was sewn firmly into the wool so that it would not blow away during a gallop.

Finally, Patrick wound the sash of green and crimson tartan twice around his waist and knotted it by his left hip; it prevented his sword and his giberne bouncing up and down as he rode. It also marked him out as an officer.

Without disturbing the sleeping household, the two men crossed to the barn and saddled their horses. The cold air cupped in the valley nipped at their faces and sharpened their senses; and all around grey hills were lined against the blue-black sky behind.

Without a word passing between them, the horses were led out into the yard. And then Patrick mounted. Then Sherwood too. And still Patrick said nothing. And Sherwood, an insightful soul, perceived his unhappiness and did not try to converse. Instead, one behind the other, the two riders followed the track away from the farmhouse and over the shoulder of the Peat Hill until they reached the cottages and the highway at the village of Eddleston. No-one was about. But they paused for a moment just-the-same, by the parish church. And Sherwood did not ask why.

The lightening sky prompted a cockerel to crow, and Sherwood searched the pockets of his coat in a muddling and unaccustomed fashion, and at length he found his tobacco pipe and his tinder box in the pocket by his left breast. Like his companion’s, his coat was expertly tailored and likewise, conspicuously new. Whilst the old soldier lit the tobacco, Patrick gazed with narrow eyes towards the graves nearby. Two of his children, one girl, one boy, were buried within the churchyard walls.

His face expressionless, Patrick kicked his gelding with un-required spite and swung south, and Sherwood, caught unprepared, was left behind. He swore under his breath, and with the clay pipe clenched in the notch between his teeth, he rode after his master.

* * *

Only when they cantered into the town of Peebles and saw the cannon did Patrick’s moroseness leave him. The artillery pieces, the pride of the Jacobite army, were lined up in the high street one behind the other. The first guns, a battery of six, consisted of Swedish four-pounders. The rising sun glinted off the bronze of their barrels. Despite the early hour, Colonel Grante’s artillerymen were already busy. A gunner was applying oil to the wood of a gun-carriage. The oil would prevent the newly crafted oak splitting as it matured and, with time, the light-coloured wood of the brand new gun-carriage would darken.

Orders, shouted in French, echoed down the street to bounce off the cottages. Teams of horses were being harnessed to the limbers. Some of the gunners tending the guns were experienced French engineers, others Spanish sailors, others untried Athollmen, volunteers from the Duke of Perth’s regiment.

The second battery of artillery, another six pieces, consisted of iron galloper guns. They had been captured from the enemy at the Battle of Gladsmuir. The galloper guns had wide limbers but only slim barrels; they were built to serve on rough ground and they were ideal for transporting on winter roads. The small field-guns fired a one-and-a-half pound cannonball… they were perfect for aiming quickly, loading fast, and killing infantry.

The artillery was important. The guns would greatly impress the English townspeople and the country folk. And they would give the Scottish rebels parity on the battlefield. But most importantly of all, Colonel Grante’s cannons signalled the transformation of the Jacobite army. The Prince’s volunteers would march and fight as a well-regulated and modern army, not as a horde of unruly savages.

Sherwood counted the cannons as they rode by. And to his disgust they were all present. There was a thirteenth gun at the head of the others. The thirteenth gun, an iron nine-pounder, was quite different to all the rest; it was a strange creature, an ugly thick-necked beast with an octagonal barrel, a weapon from the time of Queen Mary. The French-forged gun, two centuries old, had recently been reset on a smart new carriage. It was a heavy piece, quite capable of battering down the walls of English towns.

Sherwood swore. ‘Thirteen… it’s an evil number. We should have left one of the guns behind in Edinburgh.’

Patrick looked back and spoke for the first time that morning, ‘Aye, they will bring ill fortune sure enough! Not for us though… but for General Wade.’

Sherwood gave a grunt that was almost a laugh.

And Patrick looked away from the cannon and back to his front, ‘The enemy will not be expecting to face artillery on the field of battle. When the redcoats see we have two batteries of cannon, it will unsettle them.’

The high street broadened into the marketplace, a familiar sight, for Patrick had been to Peebles many times over the years, selling lambs and bullocks to the butchers and meat-merchants. Today though the marketplace was busier and noisier than he had ever known; the baggage train of the Jacobite army was parked there, filling the space and spilling out into the side streets.

General John O’Sullivan was the quartermaster-general of the Prince’s army. He had amassed a vast quantity of supplies to sustain the soldiers on campaign and to equip the volunteers that were expected to join them in England. There were thirty giant wagons, colossal vehicles; these contained the hundreds of tents that were needed to shelter the soldiers as they marched to London on their journey south. There were twenty ammunition wagons carrying gunpowder for the infantry and cannonballs for the artillery; to haul each one, eight draught horses were required. There were one hundred lighter wagons carrying food and tools and muskets and military supplies. There were one hundred pack-horses laden down with baskets and sacks. There were three score carriages belonging to senior officers and their wives. And there was a herd of black cattle to provide the army with meat.

It was not yet seven O’clock, barely light, but the marketplace was already awake… full of soldiers and pioneers and wagon-drivers, busy with drovers and servants and townsfolk, all moving between the wagons and the carriages and the animals. Patrick heard a bellow and recognised the loudness. The sound did not come from one of the bullocks, but from Sergeant Baird.

Patrick turned and picked out the fellow in the crowd, then he dismounted from his horse and left the gelding with Sherwood. On foot, he pushed his way between the wagons until he reached the sergeant in the midst of the commotion. Baird was a thickset man, bearlike, broad across the shoulders. He was swearing at an Irish stockman, berating the fellow as he struggled to load a misbehaving pack-horse. A month previously Sergeant Baird had been a lowly coal-heaver in the town of Falkirk. Now he was heavily armed and dressed in a grey tweel coat. Like Patrick’s, the sergeant’s coat stood out as new; like Patrick, Baird wore a grenadier’s bonnet upon his head.

A woman emerged from the doorway of a nearby house; she was burdened by the weight of an overly-large valise. Wearing an eye-pleasing dress of red and gold tartan, she struggled towards a carriage that stood horseless on the road. The lady, the only woman present among hundreds of men, was stunningly beautiful. Against the wind she wore a shawl over her shoulders. Against the cold she wore a fur hat on her head… the headpiece was decorated with three white ostrich feathers and a bright red bag on the crown. It was a Hussar’s hat. And Patrick, along with the other men in the marketplace, stopped their chores and turned to stare. And then a wagon-driver, one of the many dock-workers from Leith, whistled in appreciation.

Sergeant Baird cuffed the leering man, ‘Ignore the wallydrag you lecherous mongrel and harness the bloody horses!’

The wagon-driver winced under the weight of the blow.

And Sergeant Baird lifted his hand about to lash out once more. And then he noticed Patrick approach and the big coal-heaver thought better of it.

His captain had to shout to make himself heard. ‘What the hell is going on?’ It was not a reproach, but it sounded like one.

Baird used his raised hand to give a half-hearted salute, but it was a poor attempt to disguise his rough ways. ‘Lord Kilmarnock has ordered us to move out at first light.’

‘Why so early?’ demanded Patrick.

Baird shrugged his enormous shoulders.

‘Where is he?’

The big bausy sergeant pointed with the paw-like hand across the marketplace, ‘The tailor’s shop.’

Patrick knew of the place. And he nodded. And he pushed on again through the crowd.

A black bullock had strayed from its herd. Pursued by a Highland drover, the terrified beast forced it way between the lines of wagons. To avoid being trampled, Patrick scrambled between an elegant carriage and its team of four bay horses; and with the Gaelic cries of the drover ringing in his ears, he squeezed by the market cross to reach the safety of the tailor’s shop.

The door of the shop stood open, and inside the place was empty, stripped bare of all its goods. It was to be expected. For the previous day the Lowland regiments of the Prince’s army had marched through Peebles on their way south… to Cumbria… to England.

Despite the open front door and the cold air outside, the shop inside was comfortably warm due to the generous quantity of coals burning in the fireplace. William Boyd the fourth Earl of Kilmarnock sat behind the tailor’s work-bench dictating orders. Because of the heat in the room, the Earl had removed his coat and hat.

Alongside Lord Kilmarnock, pen in hand, sat a pimple-faced youth; James Brand the watchmaker’s son was the regiment’s clerk. Brand scribbled down the Earl’s order and handed the paper to a waiting drummer boy. The boy took the paper and headed out into the marketplace. A third youngster, Andrew Johnston the Earl’s servant, emerged into the room and carefully placed a china cup onto the table. Johnston, a stripling of a fellow, was no older than Brand the clerk. Lord Kilmarnock sampled the steaming coffee and thanked the young soldier.

Kilmarnock, wearing a powdered wig, smiled across the table as Patrick stepped through the doorway. And there was a distinct look of relief on the Earl’s face. Kilmarnock had a long slender nose and grey eyes that were kind not cold. The most distinctive feature of the nobleman though was not his nose, nor his eyes, but his remarkably long fingers… they were slim and delicate and almost feminine. God could not have contrived to make a man look less like a soldier!

‘We are leaving, Captain Lindesay,’ announced Lord Kilmarnock simply.

‘Why so early?’

‘We’re already a day behind the Lowland column. We dare not fall further back.’

A lieutenant entered the building in the company of a dour-faced country gentleman. Unlike Lord Kilmarnock, the officer looked every inch a soldier. At his side hung a cavalry sword and under his coat he wore an iron cuirass, and Lieutenant Gordon respectfully removed his grenadiers’ bonnet and long ginger hair fell over his eyes. The young lieutenant brushed the troublesome hair aside and ushered the civilian towards the table. And he smiled an apology.

The civilian gentleman did not remove his own hat. Nor did he wait to be addressed. ‘Sir! My horses have been taken by your hussars, yesterday… not farm beasts, mind… but fine-bred and saddle-broken riding horses.’

Lord Kilmarnock studied the angry man in front of him. ‘How can you be certain it was our men?’

‘They wore tartan jackets and brown fur hats.’

‘Ah!’

‘With bouncing red bags on the crown.’

Kilmarnock sighed in resignation. ‘Are you not prepared to give up your horses for the Prince’s noble cause?’

The gentleman stared back, his eyes full of resentment. ‘They were my two best horses!’

Lord Kilmarnock was not inclined to argue with the man. He ordered Brand to issue the fellow with a credit note for the value of the horses. The Earl then turned his attention back to Patrick, ‘It’s all a bloody nonsense, Lindesay!’

‘Yes Sir.’ Patrick suspected his commanding officer was not referring to the taking of the horses.

‘It’s all a bloody nonsense!’ Kilmarnock lifted a letter from the bench in front of him. The wax seal had already been broken. ‘We are charged with getting the baggage train and the artillery to England.’

‘Yes Sir.’

‘If we fail then our army will have no ability to fight.’

‘No Sir.’

‘It should be quite simple.’

‘Yes Sir.’

Kilmarnock waved the letter above his head. ‘Quartermaster O’Sullivan is concerned that there will not be enough bread in England to feed the army. He wants us to collect all the flour we can find in Peebles and Moffat and bring it along with us.’

Patrick did not volunteer for the task.

‘Do they not make their own bread in England, Captain Lindesay?’

‘I don’t know, Sir.’ Patrick suspected they probably did.

‘We already carry too many supplies with us.’

‘You don’t want me to search the houses for flour then?’

‘No I bloody well don’t!’ Lord Kilmarnock rose from his chair and walked across to the fireplace.

And young Brand grinned behind his colonel’s back as the offending letter was tossed into the flames.

‘We already have too many wagons as it is,’ said Kilmarnock. ‘Such a monstrous baggage train will only slow the army down.’ The paper caught light and the Earl snorted in satisfaction.

And no-one in the room protested as the order curled, then burned black, and then disappeared completely.

‘Is your wife with you, Lindesay?’ said the Earl suddenly.

And Patrick jerked his eyes away from the fire. He had not expected the question. ‘My wife?’

‘Is your wife travelling with the army?’ repeated the Earl.

‘No Sir,’ Patrick looked out through the doorway towards the expensive carriages lined up in the marketplace. ‘I thought it was ill-judged… too dangerous for her to accompany us.’ It was a lie. Patrick’s wife could not afford to travel with the army in any style or comfort.

‘Very wise! An officer should not put his own comfort before his duty.’

‘No Sir.’

‘My wife is also remaining behind in Edinburgh,’ Lord Kilmarnock nodded his head as if it had made the decision himself.

And Patrick bit his lip. He knew it was also a lie, a sham; it was many years since the Earl had been possessed the affection, or the obedience of his wife.

Lord Kilmarnock signalled to Johnston his servant. And the young man hurried forward with the Earl’s hat and coat. Lord Kilmarnock wriggled into the coat and Patrick followed him into the marketplace. The two officers stood outside the tailor’s shop and observed the disorder that surrounded them.

‘What a bloody boorach!’ muttered Kilmarnock.

And silently Patrick agreed.

‘Captain Lindesay, I want you to get the private carriages ready to depart. It appears that every gentleman of means has brought his wife, or his mistress, or his whore, along for the campaign.’

‘You mean for the ride?’

A pause. ‘Quite!’

‘Aye, it’s nearly winter. The slummocks will keep our fellows warm at night.’

Kilmarnock permitted himself a smile. ‘Then get the whores out of their beds and onto the road, Captain.’

Patrick scowled. He had not joined the army to chaperone the wives of other officers, wealthy officers… or their whores. ‘The women are not our concern.’

‘No.’

‘Then why not allow them to follow behind at their own pace?’

Kilmarnock swept his tricorne hat about him. ‘I have but four companies of horse to escort this whole flea-bitten circus to England: our own regiment of Grenadiers and the two companies of Perthshire Dragoons. One hundred and sixty soldiers… that is all they have given me. If anyone falls behind I do not have enough men to ensure their safety.’

‘We are not responsible for the women.’

‘Maybe not! But O’Sullivan will not thank us if the ladies come to harm.’

* * *

Two hours late, and watched on by the relieved townspeople, the Jacobite baggage train creaked out of Peebles and headed deeper into the Border hills. Lord Kilmarnock’s regiment of Horse Grenadiers, sixty-two men just, formed the advance guard. And Patrick at the head of the column looked back to check his men were riding in close order. They had no excuse not to, for the road ahead was a good one and the weather fair. And to his satisfaction, all of the Grenadiers were following nose-to-tail and two-by-two. Their horses, he noticed, lined up together were a curious mixture of colours: white and grey, dun and black, and every shade of brown. A few of the fellows rode tall hunters, well bred and slender in the leg; many of the Grenadiers rode farmers’ cobs, shaggy-haired and broad-backed; some of the troopers rode gentlemen’s horses, short in the shoulder and ideal for light cavalrymen.

The riders, like their mounts, were also dissimilar in their appearance. And with the exception of their bonnets no two men were dressed alike. Their coats were part-hidden by all the equipment that draped their torsos: canteens, gibernes and pouches, powder horns, sword-belts and blanket-rolls. There were weapons to carry too. Each man had a longarm slung across his back, or a short-barrelled musketoon holstered in front of his saddle, or a fowling piece clipped to his belt.

And it was not just outwardly that the men differed… whilst most of the volunteers came from the Lowlands, there were a fair number that hailed from the Borders and the Highlands. The regiment of Grenadiers was more varied than any other in the army: there were boys like John Auld and Ensign Sharp, keen young men like Trooper Brand and Lieutenant Gordon, hardened fellows like Trooper Wise and Sergeant Baird, and old heads like Sherwood and Trooper Grant. Every walk of life was present within the regiment: farmers, servants and sailors, coalminers, tradesmen and clerks. Altogether, a most bizarre regiment indeed!

Following the Grenadiers at the head of the baggage train, travelled the sprung carriages belonging to officers and their wives. Kilmarnock had ordered the carriages to take a place at the front of the column… it was not for the safety-sake of the women, nor for their comfort, but because the light carriages damaged the road the least. Behind the carriages, and already beginning to stretch out, rolled the long line of carts and lighter wagons. Everyone had thought these vehicles would cause little wear to the road, but fully laden they cut fresh ruts beneath their wheels.

In the centre of the column and attended by the gunners, trundled Colonel Grante’s cannons weighing half a ton apiece. They were the most valuable part of the train, and so they were placed in a position where they were safest from an ambuscade. Also in the centre rumbled the ammunition wagons which accompanied the guns; their wheels gouged deep gashes into the roadway to hinder the progress of the vehicles that followed.

At the rear of the column and falling behind, lumbered the thirty giant wagons that contained the army’s tents. Kilmarnock had ordered them to the rear for a reason… as each monster was hauled along, it ripped up the road with its seven foot tall wheels.

Behind the wagons followed the rearguard of the Perthshire dragoons, then the pack-horses, then the cattle. It no longer mattered that the animals’ hooves churned up the ground. The roadway behind the column was already ruinously destroyed.

For two whole days the column lumbered up the valley of the River Tweed into the empty country that provided the source of the river; it was a landscape of rounded hills and dead deer grass… ochre-brown. Lord Kilmarnock had hoped to cover twenty miles each day. They managed just ten.

During the cold nights, at Drumelzier and Glenbreck, the artillerymen and the women slept in roadside cottages. The wagon-drivers slept under their wagons whilst the hardy cattle drovers slept out in the open. The cavalrymen had been instructed to erect tents for shelter. But they didn’t trouble themselves. Instead, they wrapped themselves in their plaids, covered themselves in straw, and slept in barns alongside their horses.

On the third day out from Peebles, the road climbed to cross the range of hills that separate Tweedale from Annandale. All morning the wagon-drivers whipped the draught horses most cruelly, urging the animals up the unrelenting slope. Once over the watershed the strain on the horses eased and the road ran gently downwards towards the pretty town of Moffat where shelter, warmth and food were obtained for the fatigued men and the overworked horses.

It had been a fine effort. And Lord Kilmarnock congratulated the men under his command: a word of praise here and there, a manly pat on the shoulder, a discerning nod of the head. They had crossed the highest and most difficult terrain of their journey, and every man with the column knew the road ahead was flat and well travelled. And furthermore, to further lift the spirits of the volunteers, not one of the two hundred wagons, cannons and carriages had been left behind in the hills. Not a single man, or woman, or boy, had deserted or fallen behind drunk.

Lord Kilmarnock had planned to rest the men and the horses at Moffat. The place, after all, had a spa with a healing spring of sulphurous water ideal for recuperating weary travellers. But they had taken a day longer than expected to reach the town. And there was no time for respite or for taking the waters. The baggage train and the artillery had to meet with the Highland column led by Prince Charles and the Lowland column led by Marquis Tullibardine before the enemy learned that the invasion of England had begun.

* * *

The cavalrymen of Lord Kilmarnock’s own regiment led the way south from Moffat at dawn next day. They had barely ridden a mile when the rain began to fall. And by noon the roads had turned bad. With increasing frequency wagons and guns became stuck in the roadway, or slid off the roadside altogether as the worsening weather turned the road into mud. The pioneers and the artillerymen laboured to free the trapped vehicles, but there were too many wagons and not enough men for the task. With a curse and a glower, the cavalrymen too dismounted and put their shoulders against the wheels of bogged-down wagons. And when that failed they roped their own mounts to the vehicles to provide additional haulage power. But even with the assistance of the cavalrymen and their horses, the wagon-drivers struggled to keep the column moving. Despairing, Lord Kilmarnock sent a messenger ahead to seek out the infantry regiments and deliver a request for assistance… But the regiments of Lowland foot had long-since marched on.

For two whole days the rain fell and the Jacobites with the baggage train pushed and hauled carriages and wagons and guns along the unyielding road. The men’s clothes, their faces, even their hair became caked with the clinging mud; their boots, their gibernes and their weapons became sodden with the seeping rain; and their thoughts became filled with resentment at the futility of the whole affair.

‘I didn’t sign up for this!’ Lieutenant Gordon grumbled to his fellow-officers. The Grenadiers were toiling, trying to rock a cannon out from a trench-like rut. The gun-carriage refused to budge. ‘Why did we not take the road directly to Newcastle from Edinburgh? The road is much better there… no hills, no rain, no empty moors. We could have fought Wade whilst our men were still fresh and kept a route open for the French to join us.’

Patrick did not have the breath to argue with the young lieutenant. He had expected to gallop into England at the head of a company of fast-riding, gallant light horse. Instead he was struggling in the rain and the sludge with a spike under the wheel-rim of the obstinate gun-carriage.

After two days of mud and misery, of sweat and toil, Lord Kilmarnock and his men thought the worst was behind them. The cruel rain that had dogged them finally relented and their destination, the Cumbrian town of Brampton, was only two days ahead. And after so much wretchedness, the spirits of the men rose again; they realised that they could still rejoin the army of Prince Charles as planned. Hey-ho! Forwards then!

And then on the third day after departing Moffat, the rain returned, which soon turned to sleet, which then turned to snow. The first snowfall of the winter.

Patrick blinked as he saw the first snowflake fall. It landed on the bronze of a gun-barrel and quickly melted. It was barely November, surely too early for snow? He must be mistaken… it was too soon for the winter to arrive. But it was snow. And it kept falling. Thicker and thicker. And it was a bitter blow for the soldiers exposed in high, windswept, treeless country. To make their situation more desperate still, there was no town nearby where they could shelter. Lord Kilmarnock had no choice but to press on.

And still the snow fell… And it began to build upon the ground. And the column faced a third torrid day of struggle, through the unforgiving weather, to reach the far off village of Ecclesfechan.

And then the wind got up too and a blizzard set in… ‘Does God have no pity for our cause?’ Patrick gave his greatcoat to John Auld the drummer boy; he found the old thing too cumbersome to wear over his new tweel coat and pistols. In place of the greatcoat, Patrick belted half his plaid around his waist like a Highlander’s kilt. He drew the remainder up over his shoulders and tied the corners to his cross-belts to form a